I’m sure it hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that it’s been deader than corduroy around here.

It’s not you, it’s me. Well, actually, it’s not me, it’s WoW. I’m just not feeling the love any more, and haven’t for a while now. Honestly, the rot set in, for me, the day of my very last post on this blog. The RealID kerfuffle pretty much broke my heart. I realise it was pretty naive of me, but up until then, I’d honestly believed in Blizzard. When there was forum rage about ridiculous dev decisions, I was always prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt and trust that their priority was making the best game they could. While others scoffed cynically, I was willing to trust them and remain positive.

The RealID debacle changed that, though; it was such a ridiculous plan with zero benefit for gamers and a whole lot of seriously negative consequences, and it was the last straw, for me. Fundamentally, I no longer trusted that Blizzard was different, or that they’d managed to stay independent of Activision’s mad lust for profit at any cost.

Basically, I was no longer a fan of Blizzard.

And blogging – at least for me, for the way I blogged here at Banana Shoulders – was, is, very much an expression of fannish love. All of a sudden I had absolutely no enthusiasm for any WoW-fannish activities, because I wasn’t a fan any more.

That said, I still missed blogging here. But Banana Shoulders was tied too integrally to World of Warcraft, and being a (holy) paladin, and I didn’t feel I could smoothly drop the WoW-talk and start blogging about something else entirely. It’s worked for other bloggers, but it wouldn’t have worked for me. And, too, all of this was on a subconscious level for a long time; all I knew consciously was that all of a sudden I had nothing interesting or enthusiastic to say about World of Warcraft any more.

But I’ve absolutely missed this, and if I thought I still had things to say about WoW I would be picking up the reins again in a shot. (And even now, sitting here with the “New Post” window open, I can’t help but think “do I have anything else I can say? do I have any justification for firing this back up again? I want to!”) I am, however, working on another project that I hope at least some of you will enjoy and find useful. I don’t want to announce it just yet because I don’t want to introduce my new baby (er, metaphorical baby) in a post that’s otherwise basically full of negativity. I’ll post again very soon with the details.

For the foreseeable future, Banana Shoulders is done; I’m not going to take it down, as there’s a lot of words here that I’m quite proud of, and some bits of it may still be useful, but I don’t expect to be posting again, except about new projects. Expect more news on that front soon.

Until then: thankyou all for letting me talk to you about something that I used to love very much, and thankyou for making it such a fun experience. I hope you’re still enjoying WoW, or that you’ve found something else just as fun, and I hope to stay in touch. Thankyou for reading.

I have missed reading your words and look forward to a new baby if it all comes off.

Your site was one of the first I ever told my Dad about when he played Paladin. Now he is no longer with us, I have his Paladin and think I am ready to pick her up and play – I will be nipping back here to work out what to do :)

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